September 5th Exeter Cathedrals Express changed again.... to 30th October!

after being disappointed with 'bittern's' climb of westbury bank a few weeks ago,along with quite a few others it seems,last night,in the pitch dark, was more like it,on almost still evening but very damp,could be heard,not a long way off because of the wind direction being s/e,but the sound coming towards us was for this time of an A4 really 'dug in' to the climb,60019 was working hard,the class 37 diesel was also,but the 37 couldn't be heard over the hard beat of 60019 until the tail of train was approaching.of course the going away the 37 was very audible but soon the sound of the A4 came back into focus,furiously getting into its stride as passed over the summit and on to warminster and the sounds of warminster carnival.all very nice.

 

Big red engines, big red trains, running slowly.
Eg LNWR time Preston - Carlisle 102 min, BR LM time 101 min.

 

Can't believe im defending the Midland Region but there's a bit of difference between Shap and Stoke!.

 

I did not say that! Also please do no tell what to do on my keyboard, I will do as I please on my own PC.

 

I completely agree but Ralph wrote originally "Well you can reminisce, but by my experience of the 50's and 60's, your interpretation is wrong, 75mph running was the exception, not the norm. Yes certain expresses did exceed that, but even those tended to run at 75, however the vast majority ambled along in the 60's."

 

Hello All,

A few photographs I took of Class 37/5 Co-Co 37516 hauling "The Cathedrals Express" into Exeter St.Davids Station, yesterday, with Class A4 4-6-2 60019 'BITTERN' on the rear have been added to my fotopic site.

Link here;

http://railtractionphotosbyrichardsmith.fotopic.net/c1911908.html

You are most welcome to view and hopefully enjoy.

Best regards SteamHawk216.

 

Yes, she doesn't seem to be running as she did a couple of years back. I was on the first Steam Dreams Coronation and 19 was flying on the York - KX leg. Bit strange as I believe she is well looked after.

 

As may of you know, I am the first to criticise the use of diesels on steam tours, even just sitting on the back doing nothing is bad enough let alone pushing so hard, it was barely necessary for the steam loco to be working at all!

But yesterday was different. First of all, the push out of Waterllo is standard practice. Sometimes in the past, the diesel would not be attached and stop at the signal at the platform end. Often the diesel stays on but does absolutely nothing. Due to the broken rail (actually a point blade had "dropped" according to the Network Rail RIO Incendent Officer on the track), the 104 minute delay caused great consternation with the authorities and it was even thought of routing the train to Bath and Bristol and terminating there. Because of the lateness NR allowed the train to go main line to Woking thereby clawing back almost 409 minutes. I hate to say it, but I accepted that the diesel was going to be assisting for most of the trip to Westbury, as so it proved. The lateness even meant Bittern staying on the back of the train to Exeter rather than run in its own Light Engine path. For me, one of the highlights was, have pulled the train over Whiteball in reasonable style, the diesel momentarily failed on the way down the bank towards Exeter. It was a few minutes before we got going again and according to driver Peter Roberts, the engine just gave up but thankfully came back to life again. Many of us pleaded with Peter to declare it a failure upon arrival at Exeter!!

Peter Roberts was on the diesel back to Basingstoke and he did not push as hard as the morning driver, but push he did on climbs and when restarting from stops.

On reaching Reading we were thrilled to be put on the up fast to Paddington but something was clearly wrong with Bittern because despite being given the right away, nothing moved. We barely exceeded 60mph and on arrival at Paddington driver Tommy said that the slow running was a combination of the loco slipping due to leaf fall and a problem with the right hand driving axle which was being filled with oil as it had been at Basingstoke and Reading.

So clearly something wrong there and perhaps therein lies one of the key reasons why, during the day, the diesel did much more shoving than would normally be the case had Bittern been fit and healthy!

I enjoy this forum, but there are so so many who just jump to the wrong conclusions and post inaccurate items such as Bittern failing at Waterloo!

Often it is better to stand back and wait for official information rather than to speculate.

 

Hi Nick (Come on you Greens!)

As I stated earlier, the reason why the diesel did so much yesterday, much to my disappointment on one hand but realistically necessary on the other, was the massive 104 minute lateness and problems with Bittern especially on its return with special attention to the middle driving axle.

But that is the way it had to be and I heard no one, even my diehard steam colleagues, complaining. so don't anyone have a go at Steam Dreams as they managed the situation superbly from all aspects.

Hope you and the Mrs Fireboxchaser are well and hope to see you on the lineside soon or at Home Park against Wolves in the FA Cup sometime soon?!?

Nick

 

Hi Nick, long time no speak!!
Sorry I did not read every post and missed yours, so it was a combination of lateness and problems with 60019. Thats unfortunate. But on the other hand if 37516 had not been there then delays to other services might have occured and whoever was liable would have had a large bill.

As for Wolves v Argyle in the FA Cup we would probably lose as we usually do against teams from lower leagues(no offence).
Hope to see you out and about soon,.

 

Can anyone confirm that there was a tresspassing issue at Sailsbury yesterday.

Thanks

 

Indeed we were Steve, that's why the diesel was assisting so much too.

 

We were put inside to let a Weymouth (at least I think it was a Weymouth - one of SWT's white long-distance trains anyway) overtake.

 

All that "diesel pushing" and "Steam Dreams mis-advertising" nonsense aside, '19 did enjoy a good run. We did have to have diesel assistance on the outward leg to make up time and were very lucky to have been given a path via Surbiton by Network Rail. Thankfully it seemed someone was on the ball enough to realise it was a good idea. As it turned out we had plenty of time to service the loco at Exeter and generally held good time for the return run. A failed signal at Cogload Junction put us behind time a little, but we caught that up at the Worle waterstop.

Someone (sorry, I forget who and don't really want to trawl back through all the pages of this thread to find it) said about getting the road at Reading and sitting there - that was because we were checking the oil on the driving axle as mentioned by others. There was some slight concern over the temperature of it.

I appreciate that gen gets passed on by word of mouth and eventually changed and twisted and perhaps someone probably suggested Bittern failed at Waterloo because they saw her just standing there in an unusual position. Fortunately however there was no fault with the loco and the delay was down to a track fault.

 

Thank you very much for setting the record straight, though doubtless there will be those on here who claim to know better.

 

... the complainers must actually be voting with their feet and staying at home, leaving the others to enjoy their trip.

Richard

 

This was a one off case of the network not being up to standard, not Bittern; and when the priority is to get the network back on track playtime trains take second place in the scheme of things.

The question of planning ten or twelve coach trains behind engines that ran six or seven coach loads in their operating life, in leaf fall season, when most trains now have disc and not tread and track cleaning clasp brakes and there are virtually no freights that used to do that either, have been well domnstrated over the years. 5305 ten days ago is the most recent.

Personally I prefer the shadow loco than to have it anywhere near the train for normal purposes - but Saturday is the exception when thank goodness it was on the rear to clear Waterloo as soon as the point was declared fit for running

 

The problem at Waterloo was extremely unfortunate, but whilst not the trains fault, it does demonstrate that steam has a valuable part in keeping the network honest.
In reality Platform 19 at waterloo sees 3 & 4 car light weight EMUs daily, chances are the ECS inbound with it's heavy weight exacerbated an issue that was in hiding and became apparent upon departure... demonstrating just how many "on the edge" issues there could be with track out there.
Watching it play out, 60019 did the work from Waterloo, it seems to me the issue is the resentment of the 37 doing the business on the way back as well... no leaves, delays or fire risk then.

 

The 37 worked nowhere near as much on the return,certainly after Bristol. We climbed away from Salisbury with 37 doing very little and thats how it remained.

 

Was it not stated twice there was an oiling issue with the driving axle ?, i suspect taking some of the weight of the train off it could of been an attempt to prevent it possibly running hot.